The Halloween event for Pokémon Go is winding down, and by most accounts, it was a big success for Niantic and its popular app. The event, which ran most of last week and through the early part of this week, doubled candy acquisition through egg hatches and monster captures, and quadrupled the speed at which your buddy character found candy. In addition, "spooky" Pokémon like Gastly, Cubone, Meowth, Zubat, and Drowzee, as well as their evolved forms, were made much more common, giving players the chance to finally snatch a strong Gengar, or add Marowak to their Pokédex.

It also catapulted the app back to the top of the charts in the app stores, as it again overtook mainstays like Clash Royale, Game of War, and Candy Crush Saga. Because of this increased engagement (and revenue) during the event, it would be smart for Niantic to make a habit out of themed Pokémon Go events for other holidays. While the company hasn't announced its intentions for future events, we have some ideas for what Niantic could do as its juggernaut app continues to evolve.

The Halloween event for Pokémon Go is winding down, and by most accounts, it was a big success for Niantic and its popular app. The event, which ran most of last week and through the early part of this week, doubled candy acquisition through egg hatches and monster captures, and quadrupled the speed at which your buddy character found candy. In addition, "spooky" Pokémon like Gastly, Cubone, Meowth, Zubat, and Drowzee, as well as their evolved forms, were made much more common, giving players the chance to finally snatch a strong Gengar, or add Marowak to their Pokédex.

It also catapulted the app back to the top of the charts in the app stores, as it again overtook mainstays like Clash Royale, Game of War, and Candy Crush Saga. Because of this increased engagement (and revenue) during the event, it would be smart for Niantic to make a habit out of themed Pokémon Go events for other holidays. While the company hasn't announced its intentions for future events, we have some ideas for what Niantic could do as its juggernaut app continues to evolve.

Most Halloween game lists are full of various horror titles. While titles like The Last of Us or Dead Space are certainly worth playing during Halloween, October's holiday is about more than scares. Some Halloween classics have a sense of spooky mystery, while others have a playful atmosphere of childlike wonder. All of these games may not scare your pants off, but they're easily some of the best games to get you into the spirit of Halloween.

Kingdom Hearts For many people, the classic Halloween movie is The Nightmare Before Christmas. So when an entire world was based on it in the first Kingdom Hearts, the game became a Halloween staple by proxy alone. The location has since appeared in other games, but Kingdom Hearts' was the first rendition that truly explored it the most. The level design is filled with spooky locales as you visit iconic locations from the movie like Spiral Hill or Oogie's Mansion. This level alone makes the Kingdom Hearts series an instant Halloween classic.

Most Halloween game lists are full of various horror titles. While titles like The Last of Us or Dead Space are certainly worth playing during Halloween, October's holiday is about more than scares. Some Halloween classics have a sense of spooky mystery, while others have a playful atmosphere of childlike wonder. All of these games may not scare your pants off, but they're easily some of the best games to get you into the spirit of Halloween.

Kingdom Hearts For many people, the classic Halloween movie is The Nightmare Before Christmas. So when an entire world was based on it in the first Kingdom Hearts, the game became a Halloween staple by proxy alone. The location has since appeared in other games, but Kingdom Hearts' was the first rendition that truly explored it the most. The level design is filled with spooky locales as you visit iconic locations from the movie like Spiral Hill or Oogie's Mansion. This level alone makes the Kingdom Hearts series an instant Halloween classic.

Editor's Note: The following article first appeared in Game Informer Australia and is written by David Milner. You can follow him on Twitter here.

In his two and a half years as head of Xbox, Phil Spencer has overseen a dramatic change in direction for the Xbox One, going a long way towards restoring goodwill amongst the gaming community. Many of the unpopular decisions that saw the console quickly fall into second place behind Sony’s PlayStation 4 – the inability to trade and share games, a heavy emphasis on Kinect and non-gaming content, and the always-online requirements of the console – have been overturned.

Spencer has brought Xbox’s focus back to its core audience, gamers, implementing numerous popular policies like backward compatibility and the new Play Anywhere program. At this year’s EB Expo, I spoke with Spencer about the future of Xbox, his legacy, and what Project Scorpio means for the wider gaming landscape and traditional console cycles.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 is the best iteration of the series to date (click for my review), including captivating gameplay and a full suite of modes, features, and licenses. We had a chance to chat with Andre Bronzoni, the PES brand manager for the Americas about the title, the decisions made during development, and where it may be going after its release.

You announced plans for the first two free updates. Are you fulfilling your update schedule as you originally planned before launch? Have you also been able to make the bug fixes and changes you like with this schedule?Yes, when we originally planned our data pack schedule we anticipated for improvements and things to fix according to the feedback we received during launch. We're also leveraging our monthly server maintenance to improve things in the game.

You have made fixes to address online stability problems. Currently, is the online as stable as you want it to be?It's stable and currently running well according to the latest feedback from our fans, but there's still room for improvements in order to run the way we want it to.

Editor's Note: The following article first appeared in Game Informer Australia and is written by David Milner. You can follow him on Twitter here.

In his two and a half years as head of Xbox, Phil Spencer has overseen a dramatic change in direction for the Xbox One, going a long way towards restoring goodwill amongst the gaming community. Many of the unpopular decisions that saw the console quickly fall into second place behind Sony’s PlayStation 4 – the inability to trade and share games, a heavy emphasis on Kinect and non-gaming content, and the always-online requirements of the console – have been overturned.

Spencer has brought Xbox’s focus back to its core audience, gamers, implementing numerous popular policies like backward compatibility and the new Play Anywhere program. At this year’s EB Expo, I spoke with Spencer about the future of Xbox, his legacy, and what Project Scorpio means for the wider gaming landscape and traditional console cycles.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 is the best iteration of the series to date (click for my review), including captivating gameplay and a full suite of modes, features, and licenses. We had a chance to chat with Andre Bronzoni, the PES brand manager for the Americas about the title, the decisions made during development, and where it may be going after its release.

You announced plans for the first two free updates. Are you fulfilling your update schedule as you originally planned before launch? Have you also been able to make the bug fixes and changes you like with this schedule?Yes, when we originally planned our data pack schedule we anticipated for improvements and things to fix according to the feedback we received during launch. We're also leveraging our monthly server maintenance to improve things in the game.

You have made fixes to address online stability problems. Currently, is the online as stable as you want it to be?It's stable and currently running well according to the latest feedback from our fans, but there's still room for improvements in order to run the way we want it to.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition has been out in the wild for a few days now, giving us a chance to experience its snowy fantasy world all over again – but how improved is the game?

One way to try and answer this question is to literally place two versions of the game side by side. We played through the first 25 minutes of the game on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, trying to sync them up to the best of our ability. The framerate is definitely improved, but as the video shows, the visuals were pretty dang good on the previous generation of consoles. There is definitely some improvement there, but it's maybe not as drastic as we hoped it might be.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition has been out in the wild for a few days now, giving us a chance to experience its snowy fantasy world all over again – but how improved is the game?

One way to try and answer this question is to literally place two versions of the game side by side. We played through the first 25 minutes of the game on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, trying to sync them up to the best of our ability. The framerate is definitely improved, but as the video shows, the visuals were pretty dang good on the previous generation of consoles. There is definitely some improvement there, but it's maybe not as drastic as we hoped it might be.

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